Election Day voting was running smoothly at Christian County’s seven polling places, County Clerk Mike Kem said a few hours before polls were to close at 6 tonight.
The county courthouse was the only polling place where Kem was aware of voters waiting in a line, and even that line did not pose a long wait for many, he said.
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“Things are going pretty good, I think,” said Kem, who advised voters to take advantage of the two largest polling centers — the Christian County Senior Citizens Center and the James E. Bruce Convention Center.
Christian County has 41 voting precincts, and prior to 2020, there was a polling place at each of those locations. But the coronavirus pandemic brought major changes to the ways voters could cast ballots. In the past, most voters had to go to their assigned precinct on Election Day. This year, voters could go to any of the seven polling stations open today, as well as two polls that were open for early voting on 18 days prior to Election Day. State election officials also made it easier for anyone to cast an absentee ballot.
Jennifer Bowman was among those who went to the Bruce center on Election Day. She had planned to vote early in this election, but was home in quarantine through the weekend. As it turned out, she enjoyed sticking to the ritual of going to vote on Election Day.
“To say I waited would not be exactly accurate. There were maybe two or three people ahead of me,” said Bowman, an artist who lives in Hopkinsville. She has been eligible to vote since 1991, and the year her daughter was born was the only time Bowman recalls that she wasn’t able to vote in person.
Bowman said she believes the state should continue to allow voters to use any polling place, regardless of their home precinct’s location, for future elections.
Jessie Pfeufer and her husband also voted at the Bruce center.
“I might have been there 10 minutes,” she said.
Pfeufer, 37, said she felt it was important to vote on Election Day.
“There is something in me … about my right to vote on Election Day,” she said. “I had no reason to vote early.”
She compared voting on Election Day to celebrating Christmas on the day of the holiday.
Like Bowman, she complimented local election officials for running the polls well.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
